Story 1122: The Circle Beneath the Earth

The mines under Blackridge were abandoned fifty years ago after the last cave-in claimed an entire shift crew. The official story was structural failure.

The truth? No one dared mine deeper.

At the heart of the mine, beyond rusted carts and rotting beams, was a shaft drilled by accident—a perfect circle bored straight through the stone. It was never meant to be found. And yet, one by one, the curious descended.

They never returned.

Until now.

Evelyn Blackmoor stood at the edge of the shaft, lantern raised. The air here was wrong—too still, too cold, as if the ground were holding its breath.

She’d followed a trail of disappearances—all workers, all poor, all easily ignored. But each had vanished within a mile of the mine.

The last one had scratched a message on the tunnel wall before going missing:

“The circle is open. They are listening.”